Sigh. Haven't written recently, of course, blah, blah...and I'm in a
bad mood tonight, though I'm not entirely sure why. I guess it just sort
of happened after several weird interactions with people in a row, which
just left me feeling sort of pitiful, and, well, here I am. And I somehow
degenerated into an odd period of wistfulness for past stuff, followed by
beating myself up for it, as tends to happen. And I guess I've been
feeling incredibly cynical, just given my inability to climb out of this
crap, wondering, well, if I had what appeared to be working, and I
couldn't even run with it long enough to see if it could work the way I
was sure it would--I couldn't even trust the obvious enough. And now the
obvious is gone, and what's left? No chances as good as that one. And
maybe I don't deserve any chances that good. Hmmm. Maybe that's the
wrong way to look at it. Regardless, the end result is the same, and the
thing is, I'm not even annoyed over my present lack of a dating-type
relationship, but more over my lack of reasonably close friendships. They
just have this way of dissolving, or at least growing less meaningful to
others...T isn't talking to me, apparently, and I really miss her. My
roommate's been acting weird for several weeks, and several of my friends
from my freshman year have adopted a way of acting like I don't exist.
Which is odd, I guess--unexpected. So, it's just me and Kate for
now...as it has been for a while. Oh, well. It all makes me want out of
where I am now, until I realize that, wait a minute, a lack of meaningful
connections isn't really solved by running away to somewhere where I'd
have no connections. I did that last year--not that I had intended to,
but that was the end result--and it didn't exactly work.

That was a long paragraph. I think I'll start a new one. But, well,
I'm tired. It's way too late. Tomorrow is my long day, so I should,
like, sleep, and stuff. As it is, I can only sleep for 4 hours or so . .
.

I think alone
I could use some good help with my thinking,
It's so far from home . . .

So, it was decided last weekend or something that we would all gather
at my step-grandmother's house to celebrate my stepmother's birthday. Oh,
sure, so I e-mailed back, yeah, just pick me up and take me there, sure.
So, my father e-mailed me back and said he wanted to pick me up a bit
early because he had something "serious" to talk about, so I wasn't
looking forward to it, because I presumed it was about school or class or
money or something that I'm tired of dealing with. It turns out, though,
that my stepmother is moving out of the house, to an apartment down the
street, and taking her daughter with her. Ack. Sooooo dinner was
thrilling, with those two, my father, my older sister, and my stepmother's
mother, who kept slipping in lines about how things will get better and so
on--she's apparently quite pissed at my stepmother for the whole thing,
since she just more or less dumped it on my father. And my father's just
sort of blindly hopeful, it seems, that she'll move out and decide she
misses him or something and be back soon, and everything will be fine, and
I can't decide if that's sad or hopeful...I guess if I knew the situation
better, I'd actually know sort of how likely that would be, but as it is,
I have little clue. And I'm worried about him, because he's going to be
all alone in the house, and when my mother basically pulled the same thing
on him and he ended up living alone, he got so depressed...and now he sees
us even less. So my sister and I are going to try to be nice and stuff,
and my younger sister is coming home soon, though it's unclear whether
that's good or bad. But I'm worried about him, and annoyed at the whole
situation. "Trial separation," they call it. Sigh.

Must run now; will probably write more later--there's other stuff, too,
though it may or may not make it here. I'll see, I s'pose.

That's still pretty much the extent of my response to the events of
this morning. Seeing how I didn't get home until around 5 AM, since I had
been hanging around the lab until a little before then, I slept through my
first two classes, and woke up at 11something. So I got up to check
e-mail and the news and such, but cnn.com was slow to load...and when it
did, I completely thought it had been hacked, since all it said was
AMERICA UNDER ATTACK, and there was a blurry picture of people running or
something. So, I checked my IRC channels, and, sure enough, the World
Trade Center had spontaneously self-compressed, and the Pentagon had
gained a hole, and so on. And it was all surreal...and I took it as a
good enough reason not to do my logic homework. My mother called earlier,
apparently, though I just got the message, and she sounded like she had
just been crying. She wanted me to call back, just to hear my voice.
So, I'll do that tomorrow...but now, I should sleep. This is all so
exhausting, seeing huge things going on and not having any control or
input whatsoever, but being exhausted by them, anyway. So I think I'll do
my part to save the world by going to sleep.

People are so dumb! Arg. I'm tired of dealing with ignorance,
stupidity, and hatred. All have been showing themselves constantly this
week--and not just in the terrorist acts! I hear cries of how this puts
everything in perspective. Puts what in perspective, exactly?
Thousands of children have died from U.S. sanctions on Iraq, for example;
millions of people have received the gift of cancer from American tobacco
companies; millions more will breathe dirtier air thanks to the
enti-environmental rhetoric of the Bush administration. What perspective
was lacking, exactly? Well, naturally, now it's all clear, because we can
blame it on the steeenkin' A-rabs. Or something.

I'm, well, frustrated. People die, and all the president can think to
say (or, more accurately, read from a teleprompter) is, well, yeah, we're
gonna kill some more soon. Hooray for democracy! That'll show those evil
terrorists!

There seems to be a great run on American flags, which is prompting me
to attempt to figure out what the symbol means. I suppose it's a symbol
of freedom, and democracy, and the will of a people to form a just and
balanced society. All these values, though, have been shrunk to the
background in the era of hypercapitalism, though, so what does the flag
mean anymore--we support revenge? Our president can read "heartfelt
messages" from a teleprompter better than yours can? I must have missed
something.

I suppose I have trouble establishing loyalty to a country as some base
principle in my life, mostly because a nation isn't really all that
transcendent of an institution. It exists; it's better than many other
socities in plenty of ways, but then, it's worse in plenty of ways. So
what? Where's the justification for undying loyalty to an institution? I
don't get it.

I simply cannot pledge loyalty or allegiance to a country which sees
murder and revenge as its highest calling in the wake of a terrorist
attack. This government is fairly determined not to represent me, and I
refuse to stand by while others tell me to quietly fall into lock-step
with those who would rather kill than make the world safer. I am ashamed
of the majority of those around me; ashamed and afraid, for they speak far
louder than I do. I only hope that restraint will win out, in the end.
It seems only time will tell, though...

This incessant spirit of hate is really exhausting. Bush is ratcheting
up the war rhetoric. I've had to defend the premise that violence is not
justice far too much today, and it's tiring. I feel so helpless, and
restless. I suppose most of all, I strongly dislike knowing that my
views are being ignored by a president who often claims to be of the
utmost moral convictions. It upsets me that the nation supports violent
retaliation, and would even support a full-scale military confrontation,
which is not at all what the world needs right now. Now would be an
excellent opportunity for the U.S. to remember the importance of allies
and multilateralism, and to take the time to find common ground with all
nations. In MBA parlance, it's time for a paradigm shift, and I only hope
that people might realize this at some point...

I've never before felt quite so at odds with so many around me, and I
realize that it only reinforces my desire not to give up and offer no
protest to military action. I'm currently working to figure out what I
can do, though...

And I must sleep now. Have to get up soon to go sing, and the chapel's
sure to be full. G'night.

That was quite a service this morning...aside from the chapel being packed and all, the music was
incredibly powerful, and the sermon was quite good. The minister preached on Genesis 1, regarding God
bringing light into the meaningless void, emphasizing that we must keep our eyes on the Light, and not
the Void. Right after the sermon, we sang this amazing excerpt from Haydn's Creation--a baritone solo
recitative, followed by chorus, pianissimo--"And the Spirit of God mov'd up on the face of the waters;
and God said,"--somewhat louder, to mezzoforte--"Let there be light"--back to piano-"and there
was"--and then suddenly as loud as possible, and cue thunderous organ--"LIGHT"

And like that, we were done...it was absolutely breathtaking.

I'm trying to rally fellow peaceful students into joining me in demonstrating on the chapel steps
for peace tonight by lighting candles. Hopefully, people will show up with candles of their own, since
I've been hunting everywhere for candles, to no avail. Hrmm. So, I'm going to run to that now, and
report back later, perhaps.

Sigh. I wish everything didn't hurt so much. And right now, it feels like everything. My family
is falling apart--and whenever I mention this, people assume it had something to do with the trade
center stuff. No, just that they can't get along. The leaders of the country are pressing us all into
violence, and nobody is acting to stop them.

And top that all off with the usual, since I'm of course not in a relationship at the present. The
girl I fell for--and, dammit, I did my best not to get this close to anyone, or want to, and it
happened anyway, and it sucks. I wish so much that someone could see me as worth being close to. Yes,
it's fairly simple...I do want to be wanted. I know that I'm not, and I know how much I miss that.

And nobody really knows how I feel, which I should realize is normal for most people. I think part
of me, for some reason, though, really wishes I could know somebody really well, and feel the same from
them. Which I guess is part of wanting to be wanted--I feel it most strongly in the emotional
sense.

Tracy claimed once, rather bitterly, though probably for good reason, that it is extremely easy for
me to connect emotionally to someone I meet. This is true, in a sense, but with a huge caveat--while
I find it very easy to open up, I've never been good at protecting myself or at knowing when it is best
not open up. In retrospect, this has probably made things far worse than they would otherwise be, and
hasn't led to much more emotional connection. One would think I might get better at this over time, or
something, but it's certainly been that way for a while.

And this is just the same old whine from me, isn't it? I'm tired of whining. I have so much,
still, and I want to use it best...I just wish I had help, from somebody. And I don't feel like I have
help from much of anybody right now, which hurts.

It was nice to talk to T today--she's in Geneva now. Makes me envious, but I'll busy myself with
mundane life. I sort of mentioned this to her--how everything around either seems excessively mundane,
like classes or day-to-day activities or whatever, or totally beyond my control. It's like there's no
middle ground, all of a sudden. Maybe it's just because it's hard to think about the future when
everyone around me is busily working themselves into a war-crazed frenzy. I dunno...

I just had a very long discussion with a friend of mine...I'm worried about her. Maybe I'll have
the chance to talk to her tonight. Maybe things will start looking up for her soon.

And I need to run and take a shower, so I can make it to pick up my bike from the bike shop, where
they're presumably tuning it up.

So, not too much has been going on. The usual, class and work and
singing. I ended up staying up
until 3 AM last night talking to a friend of a friend about all sorts of
things, which was quite
nice--I hadn't had such an easy, comfortable conversation about so many
different things in a while.
But now I'm sort of paying for it by being so slow to get out of the house
today.

I haven't been writing particularly deep entries recently. I guess it stems from getting rather annoyed with how some people were taking my entries not long ago, and then I just never really got back to writing things the way I used to. Or maybe my entries never were especially deep; I don't know. But since I don't especially have anyone to talk to at the moment, I might as well write here.

I'm not especially happy tonight, for all sorts of reasons. I'm feeling somewhat used and hurt by a friend, in a way that wouldn't really make sense without a complete explanation of the circumstances, which I don't feel like writing down. But then she decided that the only way she could think of to deal with the situation is to avoid me for a while, which is sad, since she's one of the few people here who I've actually been able to talk to. So, I'm sort of hurting, but there's no one to talk to, which is frustrating. Kate is ignoring me tonight, so I can't talk at her, and I'm slightly bitter at the friend I talked to on Thursday night, because she promptly ran to Atlanta for the weekend...well, no, that's not true. I'm not really bitter, if that isn't clear. Just feeling generally isolated and frustrated, and it would be nice if she were around. I'm feeling a silly need to find the teddy bear T made for me, but I don't know where I put it, so I'll probably go look for that in a minute.

Sigh. Anyway, let's see. What did I do today? I ended up sleeping until around 1, because I didn't get to sleep until 4, I think. And then I slowly woke up, and paged my dad, because he had e-mailed me saying he was going to the soccer game of my cousin from Charlotte, and we ended up meeting for dinner--my aunt, cousin, father, and older sister, well, and me. And I remembered how obnoxious this aunt really is--she's incredibly self-centred, to the point where it's incredibly difficult to hold a conversation with her. Even beyond the stuff I expect from people, like, say, her snide remarks about my intention to teach in an urban high school--"You really want to teach those kids??"--it's just, well, amazingly frustrating to try to talk to the woman--she makes my father seem so calm and easy-going, too. She's certainly not someone I especially admire. But anyway, that was, well, interesting, and then I came back here, and it seems I've gotten nothing done since. I guess I'm sort of reeling from the way things have gone recently, and not entirely sure what to do. Hrmm. Hopefully going to sing tomorrow will help--that usually helps. But that also means I should go to sleep now, since I have to wake up in, well, about 6 hours. Must sleeeeeeeeeep...

I curse the sun in the summer; burns me up 'till i'm blind
I curse the cold in the winter, but I don't really mind
if they asked me for money, I would give any money
to the sun and the wind and the rain to be kind

I prayed the rain to keep up, but it kept coming down
washed my hands of it all, but it's all over town
I would give any money to see the sky again sunny
but i'll let it rain, really pour--salt my tears; let me drown

I had a great day, and I'm not entirely sure what made it so great. I think it's just that I decided that I was going to be happy today, goshdarnit, so I was. I ended up avoiding studying last night by talking to the person who's become a good friend in the past week. Hrmm, I guess I'll call her G, though that's amusing. At any rate, though, we wound up talking until around 2:30, sometimes about nothing, usually about everything--my cat, our families, the past, the future, everything. One of those long, rambling discussions that I do so enjoy. And then she left, and I was still rather giddy and not especially tired, though I did manage to get to sleep around 3, and actually was able to get up with my alarm in time to look over physics, and look at my program for comp sci, which just all made sense, somehow, at 8 AM, and worked all nicely and stuff. Oh, and I reviewed logic quickly, too, since I also had a test in that, and then I ran to take my tests, and they weren't especially hard. I finished the logic one, which was second, in, like, 20 minutes, so I had an hour until my next class, and I walked to the closest CD store to look for the new King's X CD. But they didn't have it, so I walked to the next closest one, and they didn't have it, either. So, I went back to my last class, and then rode my bike to the mall, and the store there had it, though it was a few dollars more, but I was just determined to have it today, so I paid up. And it's a great CD! I listened to it for a while, until I went to sing, which lasted quite a while--I had some trouble staying awake during the third hour, but managed to do so. And then back home to play with the cat and listen to the CD some more, and I talked to G for a while, and she has a fecesload of work to do, so I urged her to go do that, since I'm quite able to waste time indefinitely tonight, but she isn't, at all. So, now I'm just poking around the Inter Net, still listening to King's X, of course, basically just wasting time. Oh, and I read the best Onion piece ever. And I should sleep, so I can get up early and go to work tomorrow, really. Hrmm. I think I'll upload this and sleep now :-) Ending with a song lyric, of course, from the new album, Manic Moonlight. What's the song...erm, "Static."

Give me your address I'll send you my life in a jar maybe,
You can give it to whosoever you like

I don't wanna do this anymore
I really wanna do it

Goodbye, I can go back to my pondering
I was ashamed, but not anymore and I thank you for it

I don't wanna do this anymore
I really wanna do it

Goodbye, threw my heart-shaped box in the trash today
I was ashamed, but not anymore--I'm so glad you showed me...

It's been a rather crazy weekend. Well, mostly because I left for chorale retreat as soon as class ended on Friday and didn't get back until 6:30 or so last night. Then I spent pretty much the whole evening with G, which was fun. I took her to Chili's, which is apparently this place to which she attaches all sorts of memories from "back home", and her birthday was Friday, and she had never been to the one here, so we went there for dinner, and then the union was showing Moulin Rouge, which I had never seen, and I was informed that I had to see it. It wasn't exactly what I expected, and probably not something I especially want to see again, but it was a very interesting film. Ooooh, that was descriptive. It was intensely, exhaustingly visual. And depressing, though it was hard to be truly impacted by the film, at least for me, since so much of it was so cartoonish and self-effacing anyway. Of course, the scene with 20 or so men singing "Like a Virgin" had to be seen to be believed...heehee.

So anyway, went to the movie, it was pretty good...and then we came back, and I finally managed to get her to talk about "stuff". So it turns out that yes, she is interested in me, but for a wide variety of reasons, afraid of relationships in general. She's managed to end up with an awful lot of creeps in the past, and seems to have difficulty convincing herself that I'm different. But I do think talking helped, and we worked through at least some of the fears, and now I'm sort of trying to figure out where that all left us. But I need to run now, so I'll ramble about this more later.